Dem
51
GOP
49
The Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association surveyed its members about presidential greatness. The 525 members were asked to score each president from 0 (failure) to 100 (great). Here are the results:
| Rank | President | 2024 Rating |
| 1 | Abraham Lincoln | 93.87 |
| 2 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | 90.83 |
| 3 | George Washington | 90.32 |
| 4 | Theodore Roosevelt | 78.58 |
| 5 | Thomas Jefferson | 77.53 |
| 6 | Harry S. Truman | 75.34 |
| 7 | Barack Obama | 73.80 |
| 8 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | 73.73 |
| 9 | Lyndon B. Johnson | 72.86 |
| 10 | John F. Kennedy | 68.37 |
| 11 | James Madison | 67.16 |
| 12 | Bill Clinton | 66.42 |
| 13 | John Adams | 62.66 |
| 14 | Joe Biden | 62.66 |
| 15 | Woodrow Wilson | 61.80 |
| 16 | Ronald Reagan | 61.62 |
| 17 | Ulysses S. Grant | 60.93 |
| 18 | James Monroe | 60.15 |
| 19 | George H.W. Bush | 58.54 |
| 20 | John Quincy Adams | 55.41 |
| 21 | Andrew Jackson | 54.70 |
| 22 | Jimmy Carter | 54.26 |
| 23 | William Howard Taft | 51.67 |
| 24 | William McKinley | 51.23 |
| 25 | James K. Polk | 49.83 |
| 26 | Grover Cleveland | 48.31 |
| 27 | Gerald Ford | 46.09 |
| 28 | Martin Van Buren | 45.46 |
| 29 | Rutherford Hayes | 41.15 |
| 30 | James Garfield | 40.98 |
| 31 | Benjamin Harrison | 40.64 |
| 32 | George W. Bush | 40.43 |
| 33 | Chester Arthur | 39.61 |
| 34 | Calvin Coolidge | 39.38 |
| 35 | Richard Nixon | 36.41 |
| 36 | Herbert Hoover | 34.08 |
| 37 | John Tyler | 32.99 |
| 38 | Zachary Taylor | 32.97 |
| 39 | Millard Fillmore | 30.33 |
| 40 | Warren Harding | 27.76 |
| 41 | William Henry Harrison | 26.01 |
| 42 | Franklin Pierce | 24.60 |
| 43 | Andrew Johnson | 21.56 |
| 44 | James Buchanan | 16.71 |
| 45 | Donald Trump | 10.92 |
The members of the APSA clearly skew very Democratic. In the top 15, every president in the past 100 years but one (Eisenhower) is a Democrat. Nevertheless, the ratings have some useful information. For example, Barack Obama ranks above Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden, despite Obama having signed only one bill of consequence (the ACA) and Johnson having signed many. A lot of this is probably because, except for the all-time greats, newer presidents tend to outrank older ones because everyone has forgotten a lot of what the older ones did.
The page linked to above also breaks down the ratings and numerical scores by partisanship of the member doing the rating. So it is interesting that among Republican members of the APSA, Joe Biden ranks 30th and Trump ranks 41st, higher only than W.H. Harrison, Pierce, A. Johnson and Buchanan. The Republican members' top five are: Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan, in that order. The only post-World War II Democratic president not in the top third is Jimmy Carter at 27. Among members who call themselves conservatives, Biden ranks 30th and Trump ranks 43rd, beating only Pierce and Buchanan. The conservatives' top five are: Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, and Reagan. Interestingly enough, they ranked Clinton, Kennedy, LBJ, and Obama as 10, 11, 12, and 13, respectively, all in the top third.
Among self-identified Democrats, Biden is 13 and Trump is 45. Their top five are: Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt and Jefferson. Among liberals, Biden is also 13 and Trump is 45. Their top five are: Lincoln, FDR, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt and Jefferson.
The conclusions here are that the APSA skews heavily Democratic, but even among Republican and conservative members, Biden is viewed as a far better president than Trump and every post-WWII Democratic president is rated much higher than Trump. If you want to download the table to see all the ratings by the partisanship of the person doing the rating, here it is in .csv format. (V)